Sponsors
The bill aims to make CBP staffing more consistent, accountable, and transparent through standardized models, tracking, reporting, and IG review — trading short-term costs, added oversight burden, and privacy/implementation risks that could reduce effectiveness if data or execution are poor.
Border Patrol, Air and Marine, and Office of Field Operations personnel will receive standardized staffing models within one year, improving alignment of personnel to operational needs and potentially strengthening border security and response.
CBP workforce will be required to adopt workforce-tracking standard operating procedures and receive training, improving accuracy of scheduling, reporting of work hours and activities, and internal accountability.
Congress, DHS leadership, and taxpayers will get a timeline of regular reports (initial within one year, then annually) and a rapid DHS Inspector General review, increasing transparency, oversight, and chances for independent improvements to staffing models and past IG findings.
If staffing models rely on incomplete or poor-quality data, CBP could misallocate personnel, degrading enforcement coverage in some areas and harming border security in practice.
Developing and implementing new staffing models and workforce systems will impose planning and administrative costs on CBP, potentially diverting resources from frontline operations in the short term.
Implementing workforce-tracking systems and stricter overtime/accounting procedures may raise privacy and labor-management concerns among personnel about surveillance, discipline, and how hours are credited.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires CBP to develop workload staffing models, implement workforce-tracking SOPs and training, report methodology and results to Congress, and obtain IG reviews.
Introduced January 15, 2025 by Clay Higgins · Last progress January 15, 2025
Requires U.S. Customs and Border Protection to create and put into use formal workload staffing models for U.S. Border Patrol and CBP Air and Marine Operations within one year, and adds duties to ensure staffing models and workforce tracking cover frontline activities, operating environments, infrastructure, technology, and support levels. It also mandates standard operating procedures, training, internal controls for accurate scheduling and reporting of work hours and activities, requires regular reports to congressional homeland security committees, and calls for DHS Office of Inspector General review of each model with feedback shared with Congress.